‘A Fu, the hutong gentleman’

BEIJING, June 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — A news report from China Daily: 

Had one never met “A Fu” in person but only heard his standard, fluent Beijing dialect as well as his knowledge of the capital, it would be hard to imagine that he is actually a UK citizen whose real name is Fraser Sampson.

Actually he, and all who know him, take him to be a native Beijinger because he moved to the city at the age of 3 in 2001 and lived in Qianliang Hutong, a place with traditional Beijing character. “I still remember the day when I first went to school here,” he said, “having heard the pronunciation of my name, my teacher gave me my Chinese name, which means fortune and I have been known by that moniker since then.” Now every time tourists visiting his home hutong encounter him, they will marvel at his Beijing dialect, until he explains to them that he is a local.

‘A Fu’ has been recording daily life in Beijing with a smartphone since September 2021, opening accounts on video-sharing platforms such as Douyin or the WeChat video channel where he calls himself “A Fu, the hutong gentleman”.

Organized by the Information Office of Beijing Municipality and hosted by China Daily, the Fourth “100 Reasons to Love Beijing” short-video contest solicited entries from global participants in September 2023 wanting to share their love for the city and tell their stories about it. Sampson submitted his works and won the first prize, as announced at the award ceremony that was held at Beijing Library on May 23.

He was invited to the ceremony, where he delivered a speech. Having witnessed the growth and modernization of the hutongs and the growth of Beijing as a whole, he said he is delighted to record the stories of Beijing and its hutongs through short videos and is happy that these videos have been well-received by his audience. He said he was honored to have won the first prize, which he will take as encouragement for him to make more videos telling stories about Beijing and its hutongs.

SOURCE China Daily